Regie:
Marcin KoszałkaCamera:
Marcin KoszałkaMuziek:
Petr OstrouchovActeurs:
Filip Plawiak, Adam Woronowicz, Malgorzata Foremniak, Karolina Kominek, Julia Kijowska, Marek Kalita, Wojciech Zieliński, Nikodem Rozbicki, Robert Mika (meer)Samenvattingen(1)
Kraków, 1967. Karol's parents would like their son to train as a doctor but, for the time being, he spends his time practising his diving and observes everything going on around him with a stony expression. In a life devoid of positive emotions his attention focuses on the trail of a mass murderer who has already hammered to death more than ten people. While the city is gripped with fear, Karol is ready to get out there and stand in his way. Seclusive in his behaviour, the young man doesn't get enough excitement from adrenaline sports, and the risk he is taking appears to be the only way he can truly feel alive. The film clearly points to Marcin Koszałka's training as a cameraman; and he constructs the work with the precision of a sculptor, at the same time employing this quality to expose the story's rotten core. Kraków is here depicted as an inhospitable place, while the mise en scène underscores the emptiness of the protagonists' lives. Moreover, the film's overall remoteness gives rise to a heightened sense of the unsettling perverseness of what is actually happening on screen. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)
(meer)Recensie (3)
It's not filmed as a thriller in the American style, although the subject matter could lend itself to something similar. But it's clear that there simply weren't the financial resources for something like that, so it's primarily a conversational drama, which, however, lacks the necessary atmosphere that could be associated with the theme of possibly exposing a serial killer.
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It's a Czech-Polish film – let’s take a genre that we are not able shoot even according to the basic rules, so we turn the rules upside down and pretend to do it "differently". Everything is bad - the psychology, the cold, the logic and the construction. From any point of view, The Red Spider is a mistake. Without a doubt a game with the psyche of the viewer – unfortunately, only for as long as you can last before the film offends you with its naivety. #kviff2015
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The gloomy and sometimes depressing atmosphere is a very good backdrop for a story so strange that even after watching it I am not sure whether I have witnessed a work of art or whether I have been played for a fool. Except for small hints, I was not able to get inside the main character (or the central characters) and understand the meaning of his (their) actions. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad film. It might even be worth revisiting at some point in the future. (65%)
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